Saturday, July 26, 2008

Time to have a little look at how badly behaved us gaijin can be here in this wonderful place called Japan. Please note that I neither condone nor condemn any of these relatively outrageous acts, and though while I must admit to being sometimes entertained by this kind of behavior, I continue to be amazed at how things that would be more often than not punished by extreme violence in other countries, is somewhat tolerated here.

Video 1: Here we have a drunk English guy licking stuff while walking up the carriages on a Yamanote line train. An entertaining and relatively harmless way to pass the time to be sure, but if you go to the youtube page and read some of the comments, you start to see that while his behavior was mostly ignored, it's definitely not appreciated..

Video 2: This guy goes way over the line, firstly by taking the piss out of a homeless person, and then by throwing a bicycle into the front of an oncoming garbage truck. Inevitably he got his ass kicked (by the garbo) and most likely spent a few hours trying to displace blame in a police station (after the vid cuts out).

Video 3: The old gaijin Halloween train thing. This has become a tradition here in Tokyo. Every Halloween a bunch of gaijin get all dressed up and go crazy on the Yamanote line. For the most part it is harmless and again tolerated, but it's probably one of the greatest examples of foreigners in Japan really pushing the limits of acceptable (and respectful) behavior. I would go as far as to say that if a group of foreigners in Australia did this, they would quickly find out what it's like to both have their heads kicked in and be arrested.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Allegedly, Flea Markets earned their name from the flea infested clothes and rags sold at an outdoor bazaar held in the northern suburbs of Paris in the late 17th century. Today, the tradition continues, hopefully minus the fleas of course, most weekends at the events part of Yoyogi park. These pics were taken last Monday, which was a public holiday here in Japan, and as you can see the market was very well attended despite the searing heat and humidity..

Thursday, July 24, 2008

It was time for another little outing to the Treasure Chest, time to find a spot on that big wedge shaped bar and protect the drinks (and head) from flying heels. Mr Ono was in fine form, as was my favorite Rockin Jellybean painting, and er.. the hallway to the toilet!

Monday, July 21, 2008

Actually this guy took his role playing pretty seriously, for well after the requisite burial and TBS interview, he was out there paddling around in the deep brown murkiness, trying to set up a siring session like a Melbourne cup winner!

Welcome to the most liberated cork gun emporium in Enoshima. Please present your NCGA (National Cork Gun Association) card on entry and wait to have an official drag your gun muzzle towards the target. Also available for your enjoyment is "Smart Ball", which is like an old analogue pinball style game that seems to use cool mints for the balls.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

It's great to be back in summer, and Shibuya! Caught this guy outside the Koban near Quattro. Am noticing a lot of mag front/spoke rear wheelybobs rolling around. This guy was HAPPY for me to take his pic (thanks Koenji Calling), and I got a little なつかしい when I noticed his 'cards in the spokes' arrangement. Now if got some pegs and attached the cards to the rear mainstay, and pointed the cards into the spokes..

Sunday, July 6, 2008

We used to have a rooftop, we liked it because it was really fun. Really, really fun! We used to have so much fun on our rooftop that one day we found out that we weren't allowed up there anymore. That kinda sucked but I had managed to shoot a few before the lockout..

This pic is in some ways indicative of why we were locked out of the rooftop..

This is kinda what you saw if you looked out over Shibuya, Yoyogi and Shinjuku..

Friday, July 4, 2008

Agalmatophilia: (from the Greek agalma 'statue', and philia 'friendship, affinity') is the sexual attraction to a statue, doll, mannequin or other similar figurative object. The attraction may include the desire for actual sexual contact with the objects, a fantasy of having sexual (or non-sexual) encounters with the animate or inanimate instances of the preferred objects, the act of watching encounters between the objects themselves, or sexual pleasure gained from thoughts of being transformed or transforming another into the preferred object. Agalmatophilia may also encompass Pygmalionism (from the myth of Pygmalion) which describes a state of love for an object of one's own creation.

Agalmatophilia became a subject of clinical study with the publication of Richard von Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis. Ebbing recorded the case in 1877 of a gardener falling in love with a statue of the Venus de Milo and being discovered while attempting coitus with it.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Just about everywhere in Tokyo at the moment is a noticeably increased police presence. It had us wondering why for a couple of days and then we.. read the news! With the G8 summit being held in Hokkaido next Monday to Wednesday, the local constabulary have obviously stepped up their patrols in the hope of preventing further violent demonstrations, and also staving off any other kind of incidents that may prove embarrasingly newsworthy. Generally the cops are stationed at various points of major railway stations, but in Shibuya now they are constantly walking around the city in groups with truncheons in hand, not to mention the choppers buzzing away in the sky and police roadblocks setting up at various main points of entry into highly populated areas.

And as I'm not in the country right now I'm unable to provide a picture of anything truly relative to this post, here's a pic of some police bicycles, cool huh!